James William Edmund Doyle

[4] The great undertaking of Doyle's life, however, was his Official Baronage of England, which included every rank of nobility except barons.

The epithet 'official' in the title means not that Doyle's 'Baronage' was published 'by authority,' but that it gave an exhaustive list of the offices held by the peers of whom it treated.

It provided particulars in as complete a manner as possible, of the succession, titles, offices, heraldic bearings, and personal appearance of each peer.

For the earlier portion, especially the Norman and Angevin period, Doyle relied too much on secondary authorities, and was not sufficiently critical.

In 1886, he wrote the explanatory text for Richard Doyle's coloured cartoons, entitled Scenes from English History.

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